JEDDAH, 30 May 2005 — Jeddah Private School for Girls held a Spring Festival to mark the end of the school year yesterday, in which both students and parents participated. The theme was divided into varied topics such as the return of migrating birds, spring flowers, trees, bees and butterflies with a special showroom to know more about these creatures.
In preparation for the festival, the whole school was transformed into one huge blooming natural spot, including different sounds and sights of spring. According to school Principal Tania Tahlawi, “the experiment is an educational approach that is adopted in addition to traditional classroom teaching methods for elementary grades one, two and three.”
The events started with a musical and highly colorful parade, where students demonstrated their costumes portraying the different aspects of spring. Followed by a science and art fair, where students represented the information they had learned and gathered throughout the term to visitors.
With 25 years of experience, Jeddah Private School keeps itself updated with different educational methodologies.
“After three years of working with this methodology, results were outstanding. Students were simply able to connect between all aspects of different learning domains rather than learning each subject separately,” explained Tahlawi.
The principal stressed the benefits of combining music with science and art when teaching students: “This will enable them to grasp the material taught much easier, as everything actually comes to life in front of them.”
Mothers were impressed by their daughters’ knowledge, as Wafaa Alharithy, mother of a 1st grade student, said after attending the festival: “As a mother, I was overjoyed and thrilled by the huge amount of information and details my six-year-old daughter knew in the showroom. I assumed that she would be too young to understand scientific things like the growth stages of birds, bees and butterflies, but she carried on talking smoothly and confidently.”
Kholood Alabood, one of the pupils, excitedly remarked: “I felt like a real butterfly.”
The school is planning another celebration today, with a circus theme, this time for their pre-school students, where boys and girls will be part of a parade and show dressed up as clowns, lions, elephants and cowboys.
